1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to electronic apparatus and, in a preferred embodiment thereof, more particularly relates to the coupling and decoupling of transversely oriented circuit boards used in electronic apparatus such as computers.
2. Description of Related Art
For a variety of reasons, such as maintaining a reduced bus length and physical form factor, when two printed circuit boards are to be operatively coupled to one another using mating connectors thereon it is often desirable to position the coupled circuit boards in a mutually perpendicular relationship. A representative application of this orthogonal circuit board connection technique is the coupling of a processor board and its related expansion board in a computer server. The expansion board is mounted on a first chassis wall of the server, while the processor board is mounted on a transverse second chassis wall with connectors on the two perpendicular circuit boards being removably coupled to one another. Various problems are typically presented by this circuit board arrangement.
One problem associated with this orthogonal circuit board configuration as previously utilized is that neither circuit board can be removed from the system without disturbing or disconnecting the other circuit board. Another problem is that the separation of the two circuit boards is often a tedious, time consuming process that typically requires the skilled and patient use of various tools.
Yet another problem is that during disconnection of the two boards it is necessary to maintain them in a precisely perpendicular relationship to avoid damaging one or both of their mated connectors. This requirement is particularly critical in high density connectors typically associated with high speed circuit boards. It is also often a difficult requirement to meet due to the difficulty of manually manipulating the two circuit boards in a confined chassis area.
As can be seen from the foregoing, because of these problems a need exists for an improved technique for separating orthogonally connected circuit boards. It is to these problems that the present invention is directed.